A Generation Reappears—Father and the ­Republic by Kenneth Pai

“With the history of the ROC, we shouldn’t forget and we are unable to forget,” said Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai at the launch of his new book. In his historical research, it was as if he’d fallen into a bottomless pit. He had to keep scaling it down and start by collecting photos. In the end he found that the photos could tell stories, and in them he saw his father’s life.

His father, Pai Chung-hsi (Bai ­Chongxi), was the first military commander in Chinese history to fight his way into Bei­jing (then named Bei­ping) from the south. At the time, Pai Chung-hsi was just 35 years old. Dashing and full of spirit, he had his photo taken underneath Bei­jing’s Chongxi Gate, which bears the same characters as those in his name. As a testament to history, Kenneth Pai followed in his father’s footsteps and had his own photo taken on the same spot.

Father and the Republic is over 600 pages long, and comes in two volumes. The first volume, “Military Life,” which includes the Northern Expedition, the War of Resistance against Japan, and the Chinese Civil War, sees Pai Chung-hsi as he went from being an 18-year-old recruit in the thick of battle to being a strategist and leader. The second volume, “The Taiwan Years,” documents Pai Chung-hsi’s 17 years in Taiwan.

Title: Father and the Republic/Author: Kenneth Hsien-yung Pai/Publisher: China Times Publishing Company

Pai Chung-hsi was born in Gui­lin, ­Guangxi Province, in 1893. He and his fellow Gui­lin local Li Zong­ren were among the most skilled regional-level Nationalist military leaders—the “Guangxi Clique.” The two worked closely together for many years and, after joining Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionary forces in Guang­zhou, together saw the birth of the Republic of China.

Pai Chung-hsi’s fate and that of the Republic of China were intimately intertwined. In terms of service, he directed the success of the Northern Expedition and the War of Resistance. He maintained large territories and was one of Chiang Kai-shek’s most senior advisers. His prowess won him the nickname “Little ­Zhuge,” after the famed Three-Kingdoms-era strategist ­Zhuge Liang.

However, the relationship between Chiang and Pai was like that between the Han emperor ­Gaozu and his general Han Xin—the emperor worried of Han Xin’s growing power and repeatedly moved to pare it down. In 1948, Chiang Kai-shek assigned Pai to the Campaign to Suppress Bandits in Central China. At the time, the war in the northeast was raging and the door to the capital had to be defended. As Chiang didn’t trust Pai, he didn’t grant him full power. Rather, he split his authority in the central China ­theater. Thinking that defeat was certain with forces divided into two camps under separate command, Pai was unwilling to accept the assignment. The result was the great defeat in the Huai­hai Campaign of 1949. After the final retreat, enmity between Chiang and Pai arose once again.

“My father spent his whole life in the service of the Republic and made many contributions in battle,” says Kenneth Pai. “He shouldn’t go down in history as a ‘warlord of Gui­lin’ or be seen only in the context of his relationship with Chiang Kai-shek.”

“Both of them were patriots, and they both fought the Communists with everything they had. It’s a shame that they couldn’t stand together,” Pai says. He makes the evaluation: “My father put his country first, and was unconcerned about offending Chiang. He’d often lament that, at critical points, Chiang just didn’t listen to him.”

In the book, Pai describes in detail several military turning points. One of them is the Second Battle of Si­ping, from April to May 1946, after the Nationalists and the Communists resumed hostilities following the end of the War of Resistance. Both sides came in full force. Chiang Kai-shek sent Pai Chung-hsi to the northeast to supervise the fighting, and Pai routed Lin Biao’s Northeast Democratic United Army. At the time, Pai advocated continuing the attack and destroying the remnants of Lin Biao’s army, but Chiang was under pressure from the American special envoy George Marshall to stop the internal fighting or face the possibility of America cutting off aid. Moreover, Chiang misread the situation of the Communist forces. He issued an order for a ceasefire and postponed the pursuit. Lin Biao’s defeated forces were able to rest and regroup, and eventually swallowed up the whole of the northeast. This battle is seldom mentioned in history textbooks on either side of the strait.

After graduating from Baoding Military Academy in Hebei, Pai Chung-hsi took part in the Wu­chang Uprising, the Northern Expedition, and the War of Resistance. He is pictured here in his forties, cutting a dashing figure.

“The dead are silent; how could the living not speak?” Three years ago, retired National Taiwan University professor Chi Pang-yuan completed her book Grand River at age 86. With it, she allows those of the previous generation who have lost their voices to be heard once again. At a book launch, she said that the great split of 1949 was not due to a lack of effort on the part of the previous generation, but it was the reason a homeland 35 times the size of Taiwan was cut off for so many. The last of the million castaways who came to Taiwan are gradually disappearing. As a cultural figure, Chi felt that she had to do what she could to put on paper what was in her and her father’s hearts.

“In his later years, my father would say that his whole life was determined by others and that he would fade away. It really unnerved me,” says Chi Pang-yuan of her father, Chi Shih-ying. Like Pai Chung-hsi, Chi Shih-ying was a legendary figure from the Republic’s early days who spent the latter half of his life in Taiwan and who encountered both glory and hardship.

In 1970, Kenneth Pai finished “State Funeral,” a short story based on his father as a main character. This was one of the stories in Pai’s Tai­pei People collection, of which Chi was very fond. Though Pai was only in his twenties at the time, he was able to portray the depth of frustrated sorrow of a fallen hero. For 30 years, Chi kept telling Pai, “You can’t just write about the disconsolation of the denouement—you have to write about the past glories as well.”

Pai Chung-hsi’s connection with Taiwan began with the February 28 Incident. At that time, Chiang Kai-shek sent Pai in his capacity as minister of national defense to Taiwan to calm the situation. After his arrival, Pai ordered provincial military and police units to stop the slaughter.

Though he was a high-ranking general when he relocated to Taiwan in 1949, he never held an important post again. He was even kept under watch by intelligence agents in his later years until his death.

Kenneth Pai was the eighth of 10 children. In the book, he describes his family life perceptively, mentioning that the greatest turning point in his life was when his mother, Ma Pei-chang, passed away in 1962. “I felt as if it were not just her body that was buried, but a part of my own life,” he says. After her funeral, he went to America to study. His father saw him off at the airport. His father, whose emotions were usually hard to read, wept openly. It would be the last time they saw each other.

Father and the Republic is being published in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and mainland China. As for Pai Chung-hsi as a historical figure, there is a difference in recognition on opposite sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Pai says that the public in Taiwan is very unclear about the name Pai Chung-hsi. As he is not mentioned in history textbooks, most Taiwanese only know him as Kenneth Pai’s father. On the mainland, however, Kenneth Pai is known as the son of Pai Chung-hsi.

“Could there really be no more questions about Republican history in Taiwan?” By writing on Republican history in his own literary style and opening a discussion, Pai has recovered the memory of his family and returned it to history. For Taiwan, it is a journey in search of national meaning.